Meröppet eller personallöst? : En diskursanslys av diskussionen i svensk och dansk dagspress om de obemannade biblioteken

Our master thesis concerns the discussions of self-service libraries in Swedish and Danish daily press. Our research questions are: What attitudes and perceptions can be observed in the media coverage of self-service libraries in Sweden and Denmark? Which values are conveyed as the governing in the introduction of self-service libraries? How does the media coverage reflect the role of the librarian? In order to answer these questions we have used a method based on the critical discourse analysis of Norman Fairclough. Our empirical material is derived foremost from the daily press in Sweden and Denmark. As a complement, we have studied the governing documents and guidelines that form the basis for the introduction of ”Det Meröppna Biblioteket” in Veberöd. We have also been conducting interviews with the project manager and library staff in Veberöd to get their opinions about the subject. The result of the analysis shows that the Danish newspapers generally give a more positive image of self-service libraries. The Swedish newspapers’ more negative attitude can be explained by an image of public libraries and librarians that is more rooted in the early 20th century ideal of popular education. The idea of the public library as an enlightenment project seems to be more clearly expressed in the Swedish media. At the same time the Swedish and Danish news coverage have many features in common. For example the self-service libraries are repeatedly described as success stories. These good results are in the majority of cases associated with an improvement of lending statistics. The introduction of the self-service libraries is also mostly described as a change of purely technical nature